The Annual Christmas Eve Nativity performance. Meet Lily the shepherd. Live Dinner!! I bought two crabs and a lobster for a total of $45 dollars on Dec 23. I spent the next 24+ hours stressing about how to keep them alive so I could throw them in the pot that way. I borrowed a pot from the neighbor that could fit all five of my children in it and boiled them all up (not the children the underwater creatures)with some old bay seasoning, potatoes, carrots and onions. Voila! Feast fit for a king-served with Cheese Biscuits and lemon wedges and a 1/2 cup melted butter. No plates or chairs necessary. Definitely a meal to repeat. The annual Christmas eve pajama scramble. I always feel the urge to sew around Christmas. Dave tried to inspire me on December 1 but it really didn't kick in until about the 15. I spent all of Dec 23rd sewing. My kids pretended not to peek. The result 5 pairs of matching pjs from size 9 down to 12m and 7 shirts with applique and embroidery. Because you

So Thanksgiving is upon us again. This is the holiday most of all that I dread living in CA without any family. Don't get me wrong. I love Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is all about the feast of a million calories but it is not the same without extended family and others. The last two years have been pretty lame- Just Dave, the kiddos and me. The feast still pretty good but my kids don't appreciate my culinary efforts enough. So if you are in the area and want some turkey. Come on over...I really don't want to be eating turkey for the next 3 weeks. Because I am still going to buy a huge turkey or maybe we will butcher one of the 11 fowl in our menagerie. Chicken? I guess these are the most productive with about 3 dozen eggs a week. So they aren't at risk. Goose Anyone?They are a lot larger and more menacing in real life. Or how about a peacock?Wouldn't that be nice and colorful on our Thanksgiving table. These are the newest animals at our house and probably the

So.. it has been almost 3 months since my last post. A lot has been going on. School started including for my 5 yr old. Yeah. She is loving it. She has *wet her pants(second day of school), thrown up on the bus, and had a ear infection. Poor girl has had a rough go but she is a trooper and loves to tell me about her girl friends and girly things. It is much different than the after school conversation with a boy. *UPDATE FOR THOSE WHO KEEP READING THIS POST ABOUT WET PANTS.  Good news- she never did it after that first week.  I have gone through 3 kids now and all have gone through this step.  Most important thing I think is to not shame them, walk them through where the bathroom is, how they notify the teacher and that they shouldn't be embarrassed to go.  With Ari they had a hand symbol they were supposed to use and with her vision she couldn't really see what it was.  So we practiced and talked together to the teacher and then we didn't have anymore problem

Grandpa and Matthew Orland catching a snooze together Matthew taken in the orchard that we parked our van near when he was born. Ari's 5th bday and her rainbow cake Ari's b-day trip to the zoo-feeding Lorikeets Lily's 3rd Birthday The Sewer Project-Dave's excuse to rent a excavator Six Flag Park with Kids in June Grandma with Matthew in Zions Dave and the Kids in front of his Great Grandparents Headstone-where we are related to nearly everyone in town-Orderville, Ut.

My MIL came to stay with us for 1 week. It was fabulous. The kids loved the attention, my house loved the attention and even though I didn't love that she kept telling me to take it easy my body did. Thanks so much Grandma. We loved it! She even taught the kids yoga. This is their best yoga poses on the morning that she went home. I guess she better come back soon they still need some work on their poses. This is Lily and Matthew doing grandma's wall sitting trick. As if I didn't have enough going on my husband came home with 15 chicks. The kids can't decide which is more exciting to talk about-Matthew born in the car or the chicks. The chicks were a surprise for me. This is why I didn't want Matthew to come early..... The good news is we will have about 200 extra square ft when it is done and we will be able to fit our enormous family of 7 around the dining table. This week the project will seem much closer to completion. They are doing the tape and tex

"Jacob was born in Utah, Tom was born in Minnesota. I was born in L---. Lily was born in M---- and Matthew was born in the van." So much for my idea that Matthew would be born in the same place as Lily.

Tues April 6 started as any other day. We woke up and went to a doctors appointment for the girls. That afternoon when I got home I was starving. I ate way too much and then soon got a headache that I blamed on the chocolate dessert that I ate. After resting for a while the phone rang and it was a neighbor who started off the phone call saying "I was hoping that you wouldn't answer because you would be at the hospital. I laughed at her and said no way I have at least two more weeks left. After the phone call about 6:30 Dave told me our goat had had a baby but had died so we called all the kids out and told them about it and we buried it. Then we had a late dinner and put the kids to bed. About 5 minutes later I had a contraction. I thought weird and Dave told me it was just goat sympathy pains. So as I had a few more sporadic contractions I convinced myself that it was just braxton hicks because there was no way that they were "real." I sat down and watched AI

So I was walking in to church today with a fully loaded diaper bag (do I call it a diaper bag even though it contains no diapers currently. Yeah!) and scriptures. My awesome husband met me at he car and walked in with the girls and Jacob. I was back with Thomas who was in desperate need of my motherly tucking his shirt in and fixing his collar. The next thing I know I tripped and fell down dropping my diaper bag and scriptures. So here I am a nearly full term prego woman on the ground and what does my loving son do- He takes off running. I thought maybe he went to tell dad that I fell. Nope. He claimed that he was embarrassed and so he ran away. I only ended up with a scrape or two but most of all a great story about how my son ran off in my hour of need.

Yesterday, I took the girls to a new pediatric opthamologist doctor for a vision checkup. It is typically something that we do about 2 times a year. We really had a great experience with this new doctor. My girls both have the diagnosis of congenital motor nystagmus. For those of you without a medical dictionary, their pupils dart/jiggle back and forth under certain conditions- when they are focusing hard, trying to see distances, or especially tired or stressed. The biggest effect is that things can look very blurry. For example, if I am at a park Ari and Lily cannot see me from about 30 feet away. I have to use my voice and wave my arms to feel like they can find me. This may be perceived and not actual but I think it is accurate. Here are some of the things that I have learned about my girls vision. 1. Ari with her current way too strong prescription is 20/200. That is the beginning of a "legally blind" diagnosis. She will be getting new lenses and retest

This year our primary is working hard to challenge the kids to learn the AOFs. I think one of the best ways to memorize is through music but I find it challenging to sing all the AOF songs in the primary book. When I was a kid we had the best songs to help memorize them. The music contained the AoF and then a little bridge that explained what it was about then repeated the AoF again. The songs were also fun and some were very upbeat. Does this sound familiar to anyone?? After scouring my mom's cassette collection several times, I have never come up with them just some really great other tapes. So I have searched for these songs online every year or so. Finally I hit pay-dirt yesterday on a forum online. (I guess all the time I spent online paid off) No one can find any info on the company so I guess they are long out of business. It is too bad because these songs are awesome. But someone has put the wav files online and jpg of the songbook too. If you are interested give

Yesterday the boys had a school holiday so Dave took a day off and we headed for the mountains. My awesome husband loves to ski and spent many hours on the slopes, but that was all before he married me. I would love for him to ski but life happens with a family and budgets exist and it makes skiing a hard hobby to maintain. Plus we spent about 3.5 yrs in Minnesota where you get lots of snow but not a single ski hill in sight-what a waste of snow. The last couple years, I have tried harder to give my husband chances to ski. We even went out about 3 years ago and purchased all the gear at a rental store going out of business. And I close my eyes as I see how much we pay, tell myself it is all worth it, and then smile. (Remember I am cheap so skiing just wouldn't naturally be on my radar.) This year for Christmas I gave my husband 2 lift tickets purchased for a great deal at Costco. First of all, I am used to spending lots of money at Costco and that way I wouldn't stress

1. Monday night is FHE at our house and of course that means we must have a treat. Monday was Ari's turn to chose the treat. She wanted an apple pie. I figured I would just do an apple crisp until I found this recipe online. The pie took 15 minutes to make. The crust was so easy and I got to keep reusing the same bowl for crust, filling and topping. I just made 3 changes to the recipe. I added 1/2 oats to topping, made the filling with Granny smiths and a little less sugar because it gives you more reason to add ice cream. I would have taken a picture but we ate it too fast. 2. Nothing brings me back to my youth like some good old JKP songs. I recently heard from a friend about a sale Janice Kapp Perry's music here . Everything is 50% off with code 2009MEGASALE. I know the promotion says Christmas but I just got some great stuff for less than 30 bucks. I am especially excited about the 70 song Childrens CD and Lift your Mind Higher CD-borrowed that from a friend

We started out our morning at the dentist today. Lily had a discolored tooth that needed some work. It was right by the missing tooth- for a recap . Sure enough her tooth was DEAD. So the infection was cleaned out and a white cap was placed on it but now I am feeling like the mom of the year for having a two year old that already has two teeth gone though the one is capped.But she was a trooper for the procedure. Our dentist takes them back on their own because he doesn't want us worrying parents messing them up. And he definitely does something right because she was just fine and ready to hang out in the dentist's office playing with toys. We stopped for ice cream on the way home but it had to be vanilla because she can't eat anything that could stain the tooth in the first day. Then we got home and she emptied out the puzzle drawer. There are like 15 puzzles spread out all over the floor. So if you are looking for something to do this afternoon head on over.

Our new emphasis in 2010 is getting back to a budget. We finally got a program for our Mac that we hope will work. So back to entering bills and receipts and and watching my money be spent. As we were looking for a recent budget we came across some from our glory days as students. And I know why I struggle to spend money here was our budget as newlyweds in 2001. Expenses: Rent $450 Grocery $120 Tithing/FO $150 Telephone $35 Medical $84 Gas&auto Maint. $50 Savings $150 Investments $50 (this one never happened) Entertainment $50 Clothing $50 Misc. Household $20 Total Expenses $1240 Income: BYU $908 Pruning job $330 Total Income $1238 My favorite line item was the Entertainment budget. That was the money that we would use for our dates that consisted of dinner out 2 times a month usually splitting the fajita entree and then $1 movie rentals at Albertsons. When we moved on from BYU and finances were especially tight, (and we now had a baby)we dramat

I am a book banner. As Jacob left the house this morning he complained that he doesn't know what to do anymore because he has no books left to check out of the library because I have banned him from reading "like all of them." Really Jake what books are those? I have only let him read the first 4 Harry Potter books and I won't let him read any more InkHeart books after the first. It is hard having a kid who would be satisfied reading the encyclopedia with his dad, feeling like he isn't dumbing down by reading a book with "only 150 pages." This morning I just told him to toughen up cause that is life and you just don't get to do everything your friends or you want to do. But really I am glad that he is a reader. He knows all sorts of crazy information because he also retains a ton of what he reads. There are some negatives though and here they are: 1. If he is not doing what he is supposed to be doing you know that he is reading. 2. When I walk

Bright and early at 5:55, I awakened to my son emptying the dishwasher. 15 minutes later I finally pulled myself out of bed and got going. Chores done, lunches packed, family scripture and prayer, and breakfast served, the boys headed out the door with Dad at 7:20. Luckily the girls have the most sense and slept in until 7:30. School and work is officially back in session. We have had a fabulous Christmas break. It started off with a bang and all the kids except Tom came down with fevers at the start of the week of Christmas. It made me thankful that I had not made any Christmas party plans that week and angry that I had to reschedule the girls' eye specialist appointment for another 2 months in the future. Christmas Eve we got together with friends for dinner and the nativity reenactment. After having to recast Mary with a less hormonal substitute, we had a very enjoyable evening with some great music-the dad of the family is a great pianist. Before bed we opened our Christ